News

Prof. Dan McCammon is being awarded a 2016 NASA Exceptional Public Service Achievement Medal in recognition for pioneering work in the study of the celestial diffuse x-ray background and the development of low temperature x-ray spectrometers that have enabled numerous NASA projects.

This award was presented to Dan at the Agency Honor Awards Ceremony, September 14, at the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center.

Zweibel wins 2016 Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Ellen Gould Zweibel has won the American Physical Society’s 2016 James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics.

The prize citation recognizes Zweibel for “seminal research on the energetics, stability and dynamics of astrophysical plasmas, including those related to stars and galaxies, and for leadership in linking plasma and other astrophysical phenomena.”

Members of the Department of Physics Board of Visitors Robert Leach, Gregory Piefer, Thomas Dillinger, Lloyd Hackel, and Craig Heberer (left to right) on an imagined trip in the frame of the Badgerloop pod prototype under construction in Chamberlin Hall, 6 May 2016.

Alexander 'AJ' Carver, (BS '06 physics and astronomy-physics), recently became an assistant professor at SolBridge International School of Business, Daejeon, South Korea where he teaches courses in quantitative methods and critical thinking.

Prototype of LUX-ZEPLIN Dark Matter Detector Tested at SLAC

Thursday, June 2, 2016

Prototyping of a new, ultrasensitive “eye” for dark matter is making rapid progress at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory: Researchers and engineers have installed a small-scale version of the future LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) detector to test, develop and troubleshoot various aspects of its technology.

In an effort to probe the first few moments of time after the Big Bang some 13.8 billion years ago, a consortium of researchers, including from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is planning a new observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert to measure the cosmic microwave background (CMB).

The $40 million initiative, known as the Simons Observatory, was announced today (May 9, 2016) and is being funded by major grants from the Simons Foundation and the Heising-Simons Foundation.

Last week, The Journal of Undergraduate Science and Technology (JUST) — completely run by undergraduate volunteers — published its first issue.

One of the students making this possible is Noah Johnson, Editor of Content. Johnson is a junior studying physics and mathematics. He also performs physical chemistry research in the Ediger lab, where he studies the effect of aspect ratio on molecular orientation in organic semiconductor glass films. He is interested in pursuing a career in the research of solid state realizations of quantum information processors and also wants to teach at the university level. Other interests of his include Bob Dylan, the Beat Movement and 60’s counterculture, Kurt Vonnegut, Woody Allen and French New Wave cinema, and corduroy pants.